St. Norbert

St.Norbert, the founder of the Order, was born at Xanten in Germany about the year in 1080, and at an early age was admitted to a canonry in the collegiate church of St. Victor in his native city.

In 1115 he felt himself called to lead a more perfect way of life, and Norbert resolved to give himself up to an apostolate of itinerant preaching.
He obtained the approbation of Pope Gelasius II (1118-19) at St.Gilles in 1118, which was confirmed in the following year by his successor Callixtus II (1119-24) at the councils by Rheims.

Norbert by this time had gathered a number of disciples and through the instrumentality of Bartholomew de Vir, bishop of Laon, a site for the foundation of religious house was given him in 1120 at Prémontré.

Premonstratensians “are the Canons Regular of Prémontré, also known as the Premonstratensians, Norbertines, or White Canons (in the British Isles).  The Order was founded by St. Norbert in the early 12th century, at the dawn of the great reform movement of the high middle ages in western Europe.”


The central idea of St.Norbert was “the perfection of the apostolic life”. The foundation of St. Norbert in Magdeburg became the centre of Premonstratensian  influence in middle Europe.

The Eucharistic cult received its impetus from the work of St.Norbert in crushing the heresy of Tanchelin in Flanders, which he undertook at the request of Burchard, bishop of Cambrai, in 1124.

St.Norbert remained at Madgeburg till his death on 6 June 1134, bit it was not before 1582 that the saintly founder was officially canonised by Gregory XIII of 1578 under 6 June, the date of the original feast.

The body of St. Norbert was translated from Madgeburg to the abbey of Strahov in Prague in 1627.

Canon Missale
St. Norbert